Many devices not only perform their functions when actually operated by a user, but also provide functionalities that create an output to a user without immediate prior interaction. Such devices include mobile phones, or telephones in general, which may receive calls or text or voice messages at any time, and further include personal digital assistants, or PDAs, which may inform a user of an upcoming event, e.g. an appointment, a general reminder, or a birthday, and the like. Such PDA functions may also be performed by corresponding software running on a mobile phone, a general purpose computer, a personal computer, a tablet computer or a laptop computer.
The events may be visually notified, e.g. by a message on a display screen or by lighting up an indicator lamp. The event may also be acoustically notified, e.g. by playing a sound associated with the event such as a ring tone or a message tone. The event may likewise be indicated by generating a tactile indication, e.g. vibrating the device or parts thereof, or by modifying a feature on a surface in such a way that it can be sensed, including retracting or extending a pin or the like, or applying a safe low voltage that is perceivable when a conductive surface is touched. The notification may also be effected by any combination of visual, acoustic or tactile indication.
An event notification is usually issued when the event occurs. However, a user may not notice the initial event notification, e.g. when the device is located remote from the user, i.e. out of sight, not within hearing distance, or not within touching distance. A user may also miss the initial event notification even though the device is not located remote from the user, e.g. when the device is stored away in a place that suppresses the indication such as a backpack or any other kind of bag, or when the place the user currently is in conceals the initial event notification, e.g. is noisy or distracting.
Devices issuing a notification are usually adapted to receive some form of user feedback, like confirming or dismissing a message that was displayed on a display screen, or cancelling an alarm, or the like.
Some devices will permanently repeat the indication until a user feedback is received, while some devices will repeat the indication at certain intervals. The time duration during which the indication is repeated may be limited to a predetermined time period.
Such repetition may still go unnoticed by a user and each time consumes energy. Such useless energy consumption is generally undesirable, in particular with battery operated devices.
In case of a missed initial event notification, and in case the device did not repeat the event notification, or stopped repeating the event notification after a certain time, the user would have to check if there was a missed event notification. Such checking may involve briefly activating the device for checking indications on a display screen, or for actively polling event notifications. If the device had been in power saving mode or sleep mode this checking usually includes switching on the backlight of the screen and looking at icons or other features represented on the screen that indicate a missed event. This is cumbersome and also unnecessarily consumes energy in those cases when no event had been missed. Some users may feel urged to regularly check if they missed an event, which may be inappropriate in certain situations. When the device is a battery operated device this may significantly reduce the remaining battery charge. Some mobile phone manufacturers, e.g. Nokia in their 6300 model, provide a light emitting diode that flashes in regular intervals in case an event has occurred and a user did not react upon this event. However, even this flashing of an LED is triggered immediately after the event occurred and is not limited in duration, thus unnecessarily consumes energy.
Many devices do not feature additional indicator LEDs for style reasons, for reducing the component count, or for reducing the openings in the housing for improved ruggedness or easier manufacturing. In this case the user has no other choice than to switch the device from standby or sleep to on every time the user suspects that there might have been a missed event notification, e.g. indicating a call or a text message that previously went unnoticed. Not only does this unnecessarily reduce the remaining battery charge in battery operated devices, but also such behavior, when repeated at short time periods, can be inappropriate or impolite in certain situations, and therefore be undesirable.
The present invention removes the need to switch on a device for checking event notifications that went unnoticed and provides a much more unobtrusive way of re-triggering or reissuing event notifications that previously went unnoticed.